On Wednesday at Sotheby’s, the auction action began with the David and Shoshanna Wingate sale of 25 lots. The surprise top lot of that sale was an untitled brass-and-aluminum Donald Judd work, estimated at $600,000, which sold for twice that with fees. A Diego Giacometti cat sold for three times its $150,000 estimate to make almost $600,000, and an ostrich did pretty much the same to make nearly $400,000. Design works continue to captivate collectors.

In the modern day auction at Sotheby’s, Edward Hopper’s Monhegan Lighthouse sold for more than $4.1 million against an estimate of only $1.2 million. Robert Mnuchin’s untitled Joan Miró gouache sold for nearly $2 million; its estimate was $800,000. Milton Avery’s Pink Meadow followed the same estimate-to-sale price trajectory. The sale opened with a run of works by Bridget Tichenor, Anna Güntner, and Jane Graverol that all sold for many times their five-figure estimates. The entire modern day sale was more than 91 percent sold by lot and made $62 million, which was more than 13 percent above the low estimate. For a category that has long been out of fashion, that’s a strong showing.

The evening brought everyone back to Christie’s, where the deeply important but often difficult-to-sell category of minimalist art was represented with the “Hank” McNeil collection from Philadelphia. The top lot was a sublime copper Donald Judd “stack” that ultimately sold for $12.8 million—the second-highest price for a work by the artist. But the most aggressive bidding was for a Carl Andre “corner” piece of carbon and polished copper cubes, which sold for more than $1.1 million (the estimate was $300,000), and a Richard Artschwager furniture piece titled Two-Part Invention, which was estimated at $60,000 but achieved a premium price of $635,000.

That sale totaled nearly $26 million, and rolled right into the 21st century evening sale at Christie’s, which made another nearly $137 million. Nowhere was the turn toward historical art more evident than in the contrast between the packed saleroom on Monday, which almost seemed to be a social event, and the decidedly professional audience at Christie’s on Wednesday.

The 21st century sale at Christie’s opened with a run of what the auction house titled “Marian’s Richters,” a moniker that sold the works successfully. A 2-foot-tall abstract painting estimated at $3 million sold for nearly $9 million with fees, truly an astonishing price. The larger 2-meter abstract, titled Mohn, sold for $20 million. But somehow, the single candle painting, which was estimated at $35 million and sold for $30 million ($35 million with fees), drew more attention in some sale recaps. (Our friends at ARTDAI shared an internal pricing model, which predicted $35 million as the selling price based on Richter sales over the last few years.)

Indeed, Marian Goodman’s provenance was so strong that her Jean-Michel Basquiat work on paper, Asbestos, sold for $6.5 million over a $3 million estimate. Non-Marian Goodman works in the sale by Cecily Brown, Keith Haring, and Richard Prince sold for decent prices at or just below the estimates. An untitled Christopher Wool work on paper sold for more than $3.2 million, a very strong price. And the nearly $4.6 million paid for another painting to come out of Philadelphia, Barkley Hendricks’s Jules, was the artist’s third-highest auction price ever.

Several people attending Christie’s sale left early to make it a few blocks uptown to the Tiffany store, where Loïc Gouzer was holding the latest of his traveling, live, single-lot sales from Fair Warning, his alternative auction platform. I had a drink with an art advisor earlier in the evening who said she was sorry to have to miss the event, if only because of the access to the Peter Marino–designed exclusive 10th-floor club, for Tiffany’s best customers. The apartment-like space did not disappoint. Neither did Gouzer’s sale of Banksy’s Girl with Balloon on Found Landscape, from the artist’s Crude Oils series, which made a total of $18 million, the artist’s third-highest auction price.

Although the auction was “live,” all of the bidding was conducted by bidders on the phone with Fair Warning’s principals, and the lot went home with a client of Gouzer’s new partner, Saara Pritchard. Gouzer’s next challenge won’t be finding another star lot to sell—but finding an even more exclusive location for next season after holding sales at Coco’s, the Clemente Bar, and this rarefied Tiffany’s space.

Despite yesterday’s day sale traffic jam, results were strong. Phillips had a 91 percent sell-through rate on 266 lots with a $30.5 million total. Christie’s sold 93 percent of its lots for a total of $102 million. (Bonhams doesn’t report its aggregate results.) Notably, the day sale number at Christie’s was almost exactly the same as Sotheby’s total seven days earlier. Whatever is going on in the art market right now, it’s not a phenomenon isolated to a particular auction house, period, or category of art. Previous ownership also does not seem to matter. There are simply a lot of people out there buying art for decent but not enormous sums.

At Phillips, the top day sale lot came from the Loeb collection of Danish art: Harald Slott-Møller’s Summer Day, from 1888, which was estimated at $30,000 but sold for nearly $1.3 million with fees. Another Danish work by Edvard Eriksen was estimated at $12,000 but sold for more than $540,000. Works by Richard Prince, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Rauschenberg sold well but within the estimate range. An example of Robert Indiana’s LOVE, from 1966 but fabricated in 1998, was estimated at $150,000 but sold for more than three times that to make $580,000 with fees. Works by Beatriz Milhazes, Olga de Amaral, and Lee Ufan also sold well. And Phillips set new record prices for Kikuo Saito and Woody De Othello, among others.

At Christie’s, the day sales had a number of surprises. A new auction record was set for a Josef Albers. While Homage to the Square: Golden (never was an artwork better titled) had some condition issues, that didn’t seem to concern bidders, who ignored the $650,000 estimate and drove the price to $3.5 million. I’m told this is how much a large Albers homage painting will set you back if bought directly from the estate’s gallery. I understand that the warm orange and gold tones fit with the top prices for red-hued homage paintings, but that record result was still a surprise to everyone I spoke to in the market.

Christie’s was able to sell all 27 of the George Condo works being offered by his former wife, Anna, for a total of more than $8 million—an impressive result, given that Condo’s market has cooled in recent years. It’s also worth mentioning that all of these works are at least a decade old, another sign that buyers are turning toward historical works even within the oeuvre of a living artist.

Finally, Joan Mitchell’s untitled 1965 painting was the top lot at Christie’s day sale, making nearly $5.4 million. Wayne Thiebaud’s Banana Hands, estimated at $900,000, made a premium price of more than $2.6 million. One of the bigger surprises of the day sale was that Rudolf Stingel’s gold-plated graffiti work sold for nearly $1.4 million. In another era, similar works have sold for prices in the $6 million range. Of course, Stingel’s market has been damaged by Inigo Philbrick’s trading in his works, but this price isn’t far from the $1.7 million the consignor paid for the work in Hong Kong in 2019, a few weeks before Philbrick went on the lam and the extent of his fraudulent dealing became known. Christie’s had placed the work at the entrance to its lobby in a very visible but also unobtrusive spot. The tactic seems to have worked.

I’m going to leave it there for now. I’ll have a more detailed analysis of these fascinating sales in the Inner Circle in weeks to come. For now, enjoy the holiday weekend. Remember, there will be no newsletter on Sunday. Let’s talk again on Tuesday.

M